K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches

From the New York Times baseball columnist, an enchanting, enthralling history of the national pastime as told through the craft of pitching, based on years of archival research and interviews with more than three hundred people from Hall of Famers to the stars of today

The baseball is an amazing plaything. We can grip it and hold it so many different ways, and even the slightest calibration can turn an ordinary pitch into a weapon to thwart the greatest hitters in the world. Each pitch has its own history, evolving through the decades as the masters pass it down to the next generation. From the earliest days of the game, when Candy Cummings dreamed up the curveball while flinging clamshells on a Brooklyn beach, pitchers have never stopped innovating.

In K: A History of Baseball in Ten Pitches, Tyler Kepner traces the colorful stories and fascinating folklore behind the ten major pitches. Each chapter highlights a different pitch, from the blazing fastball to the fluttering knuckleball to the slippery spitball. Infusing every page with infectious passion for the game, Kepner brings readers inside the minds of combatants sixty feet, six inches apart.

Filled with priceless insights from many of the best pitchers in baseball history including twenty-two Hall of Famers--from Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, and Nolan Ryan to Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton Kershaw--K will be the definitive book on pitching and join such works as The Glory of Their Times and Moneyball as a classic of the genre.

• Ten Innings at Wrigley: The Wildest Ballgame Ever, with Baseball on the Brink
• The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told: Thirty Unforgettable Tales from the Diamond
• The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
• Ballpark: Baseball in the American City
• The MVP Machine: How Baseball's New Nonconformists Are Using Data to Build Better Players
• Let's Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, the Life of Ernie Banks
• 108 Stitches: Loose Threads, Ripping Yarns, and the Darndest Characters from My Time in the Game
• The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing, and Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime
• Full Count: The Education of a Pitcher
• Incredible Baseball Stats: The Coolest, Strangest Stats and Facts in Baseball History